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Chapter 14: Springtime
April 15th Good Friday found the snow still on the ground & many people predicting a late spring apparently it was no nearer than it had been a month ago. Again we could not help lamenting our severance from all religious privileges, it seemed more difficult to observe these & other Holy days, in a proper manner than the one rest day of every week. In the afternoon it was evident a change of weather was imminent & the next morning a rapid thaw had commenced, still we melted snow the whole of Saturday, digging it in the morning from a flat piece of land where it lay quite 2 feet deep, by Tuesday morning it was entirely gone. Easter day we had our first buckets of water brought into the house since the beginning of December & by the middle of the day not a vestige of snow could be seen. Spring had indeed burst upon us so suddenly that we could hardly realize that the time had come for the plough to be at work again & the seed corn scattered over the dark rich soil waiting to receive it. It seemed almost incredible that on Good Friday the sleighs were in use & on the following Tuesday many acres of wheat were planted. In spite of the large quantity of snow that melted so rapidly excepting in the sloughs there was no standing water & it is the same after heavy falls of rain, the ground dries with extraordinary quickness. It is curious too how the birds know the exact day to return, ducks & snipe were seen on Easter Sunday & on Monday not only had the wild geese & Turkeys come back, but all the smaller birds, hawks, crows, robins, & blackbirds & many others, the black birds fortunately were not quite so numerous as when they left us, but doubtless by the harvest they will have increased to the thousands of last summer, they were a perfect scourge & when a field of corn is stooked the sheaves are entirely black with them, they go in such flocks that the noise of their wings in the air had made me go out several times to see what it could be, they are the farmers pest especially in a field of oats which they prefer to other grains. By Saturday everything was so dry that many prairie fires were running, the whole of the following week the surrounding country was either in flames or volumes of smoke, as on each piece of occupied land fires were started & as the wind drove them either N.S.E. or West the roar & crackling of the flames was terrible, but at this season there is not so much danger attending them, as the corn is thrashed & the numerous hay stacks scattered over the country in the Autumn are consumed, still occasionally a stable does get destroyed, but as a rule everyone takes the precaution to burn round his house & stable as early in the season as possible to prevent an accident as sometimes these fires run for miles & frequently burn stacks or firewood & other things they were not intended to. The last week in April my husband was away ploughing 8 acres of land he had rented about 5 miles from here to plant a little wheat & barley on 2$ was the price per acre, paid in April & after the harvest he has nothing to do with the land. This is quite as cheap breaking land & planting on it the same season as the cost of breaking is estimated at 5$ per acre though of course it varies & a better crop is insured. This was the first time my husband had left us alone since we were at Minnedosa & again the cow had to come under my care. Milking is usually the occupation of the farmers wives & daughters in Ontario but I had never undertaken it as part of my duties & the cow we had was not so quiet as the one we had before & though there were no mosquitoes to trouble us I did not get on so well as when at Minnedosa & it was the greatest relief when this duty we performed & I counted the days until my husbands return as eagerly as any child before the holidays, this was one of the little trials I had not anticipated, but of course when the husband is away the wife has all to do out of doors & in & it is equally bad for the husband when he is left in charge to have to bake & cook as many frequently do, & very clever some of the bachelors are in making bread & butter & I have heard that their houses are often kept beautifully clean & neat without any assistance from the fair sex. After so many months of snow we watched the little pieces of green spring up with as much pleasure as we sought for the first violets & primroses in our hedge rows at home, & the children came in with great glee to show us the first strawberry blossoms one day in Easter week, the fires had not come close to our house & all around it was looking green & spring like directly the snow was gone still we did miss the sweet spring flowers of home very much & the beginning of May were delighted to find a quantity of "Marsh Marigolds" these & the blue dog violet are the only flowers exactly like our English wild flowers I have yet found, many of the cultivated ones grow naturally here & a fortnight later when I took the children for a walk to the pretty lake beyond our house it seemed as if the prairie was a large garden, wild strawberry, raspberry, currant, gooseberry & cherry trees were everywhere & if we have a favourable summer I hope we may this year have some fruit & as the wild trees grow so freely, surely we may look forward to sometime having luxuriant gardens.
One day my husband took me to see an English family who had recently arrived from Ontario where they spent the winter, having left England last autumn. I thought how amused our friends at home would be to see us start in an Ox-cart, one of the red river carts already described. The sides are made of spars about 2 ½ feet high looking rather like a sheep rack on very high wheels, we went across the prairie for 5 or 6 miles, the fires had so blackened the whole country that every beauty was gone. We found our compatriots busy with their seed sowing but the daughter to whom my visit was intended was in the house & we were soon talking of places familiar to both of us, for they were not only from England but from the same county as ourselves. We were glad to find they were as pleased as we were with Minnedosa & in fact with Canadian life altogether, they were renting land for this season & had not decided when they intended to locate permanently in this vast country. On our return we were surprised to hear that our surveying friends were at their cache near us & as they had finished their survey had come that afternoon to say "Good-bye" we felt vexed to have missed them, but they had promised to come again in the evening which they did & we thoroughly enjoyed the few hours they spent with us & were quite sorry to think that as they were returning at once to Toronto in all probability we should not meet again. The weather still continued fine & all kinds of wild fowl were plentiful but difficult to shoot being unusually wild still sometimes we could watch the ducks swimming on the sloughs just like the tame ones on the ponds in England & one day we watched 2 wild turkeys or sand hill cranes as they are more correctly termed walking about the field close to the shanty, they were of a sandy colour & their bodies slender & crane like but their heads & the noise they made exactly like the Turkeys in a farm yard, they are not often killed I believe in this season everyone is too busy for sporting. By May 12th the cattle were all turned out & the rich yellow cream bore testimony to the goodness of the grass. The grain was now nearly all planted with the exception of some barley which was put in the next week & as this was considerably earlier than last year every one is very hopeful for a more bountiful harvest. The potatoes were planted & the gardens put in order we could not have ours this year so we sowed a few vegetable seeds in the field belonging to our host who kindly gave us a piece of land for that purpose. My husband then turned his attention to our house which we were anxious to get into by June, before the busy breaking season, finding the roads too bad to draw sand & wishing to save the oxen the additional work he decided to put a thick coat of mud on the rafters instead of plaster mixing with it a quantity of chopped hay, this was the hardest & most disagreeable work he had yet undertaken & most thankful he felt when it was finished having carried 200 pailfulls of mud to the roof where a neighbour was putting it on & we hope it will prevent the danger of a fire in the future, for the stove pipes cannot be swept frequently, as they pass through every room & have several elbows so that it would be impossible to send a brush through them & during the winter it is too cold to take them down. During the most severe weather the stove is often not cleaned for weeks unless there is another to burn meantime as it is much too cold to be without a fire for even an hour. In Ontario it is no uncommon occurrence for families to be "burnt out" but as yet few have been so unfortunate in this country. To be once more in a house of our own will be truly delightful & very busy & pleased we shall be getting it in order, but I am afraid we shall be getting constantly reminded of such that is gone, which I had so often thought would materially add to the comfort & appearance of our little domicile our books of which only a few were saved are a much greater loss here than can be well understood in England where the circulating libraries & immense quantity of current literature obtainable everywhere makes people to a great extent independent of their own book shelves, much as I regret the loss of Longfellow's, Cooper's poems other much prized volumes I grieve most over the destruction of the books we had brought for the children's Education & these which are most necessary it is impossible to replace here.
